Anima
by ratpigeon
Summary: This is another sequel to Messenger Of Death, chronicling the life of the resurrected Cooro in the streets Sailand, which are unfriendly to Anima. I don't own anything.
1. Chapter 1

This is written at Anime gurl and u know it's request, based around her character, Bree. I'm not sure how well it's working, but here goes nothing...

*

Prolouge.

I looked out at the street, toddling around the warm kitchen on my chubby baby legs. It's hard to balance, and my wings flutter, keeping me upright. It seems strange to be here, with Husky and Nana and Senri, especially since my new voice is only just learning to make proper words. I am eight months old, but I have a memory stretching back eighteen years, including six months of being dead, nine months of being an unborn foetus, and four years of travelling with my parents, and 'uncle Sen'...

"Cooro, lunchtime." Says Nana brightly, picking me up. I wonder how they feel, having me as their child. THey know I'm not ordinary, they know I was their friend, and Husky knows very well that Nana briefly entertained a crush on me when we were about thirteen. That makes mealtimes awkward. I slip away from my mind, letting it fall into the infantile daze it should be. It would be so much easier just to be a normal child, but that is asking far too much of my second chance. So, apparently are all my requests for apples. I would kill, I would die - again - for an apple.

I sigh, calling into the now empty expanse of my subconcious. I can no longer hear my Anima speaking to me, but my wings are no longer the result of an anima, I can't make them disappear anymore. They are nearly invisible when folded against the white skin of my back, but they're still there, pale, transparent, supernatural.

I smile and gurgle happily as Nana begins bouncing me up and down, cooing at me. It's what she expects, and I try to play the part of a normal infant.

_Still, it is kind of fun..._I smile to myself. I have changed, it's true, but there is still some part of the original Cooro in me. I tell myself that everyday. I have to.

_I'm starting to sound like my anima..._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter one

four years later...

_I skip happily through the street, holding Mama's hand and eating my apple. I love apples! They're so sweet and crunchy! If I had the chance, I wouldn't eat anything but apples all day. I flap up into the sky and begin flying circles around Mama's head. She's so pretty when she's happy. She laughs and holds me tight._

_"_You're such a good boy, Cooro!" She smiles at me. The surface of my mind is still childish delight, but underneath it, are my true thoughts, swirling in patterns no four-year-old should comprehend. My golden eyes and semi-transparent wings are not the only unusual things about me, they are just indications of it.

I hear a whimper. Giggling and pretending to be restless, I squirm out of Nana's arms, fying to the sound more from curiosity than any real desire to help. Once I would have raced over there as fast as my wings could carry me, no I know better than to constantly try and change the fate of those suffering. It's hardly worth it. Nana lets me go. She knows that I am not a normal child, and she can't stop me. _ She looks sad when I fly away from her though..._

I hear the whimper again, and circle down. There is a young girl, brown haired, about four, I would say 'my age', bu that would be a lie. She has been cornered by several men, one of whom is holding out a thick leather collar.

"Come on doll-face, we won't hurt you, you just need to come with us..." The girl shakes her head, looking up at her tormentors with wide eyes.

_I have to help her! _I shake my head slightly, ignoring the stray thought. There's no point. From here, I can see the anima markings on her back. I can sense the Anima stirring restlessly inside her, wanting to escape, wanting to fly the girl away, but held still by her fear. A tawny owl.

Suddenly my wings twitch out of my concious control, and I dive down to the girl, whooping carelessly. _I toss my apple at a large black-haired head, and it bursts, spraying sweet juice over his skin. Yummy apple face...The slavers didn't seem to be expecting me, so I can land in front of the girl._

_"Fly away! Come with me!" I hold out my hand and smile, ignoring the stunned slavers at my back. _

_The girl's wide eyes are greeen as she stands up timidly, shaking brown speckled wings unfolding from her back as her eyes grow wide and golden, the same colour as my own. I grab her wrist, flapping up just as the stunned slaves recover. The man covered in squashed apple shouts out to his companions:_

_"That boy's an +Anima too! I've never seen one like it! Get him!" But they're too far behind. I laugh, flipping through the air and grinning at the girl._

_"My names Cooro! What's your name?" I want to be her friend. She looks sad, and scared..._

_"Bree..." Her voice is childish, lisping. _

_"Nice to meet you Bree. You should be more careful." I grin, and hand her an apple from my pocket, before grabbing one for myself. It's a shame I lost the other one..._

"Why did you help me?" asks Bree, her green eyes suspicious. Such a cynical expression is a shame on a child, but life is hard, more so for some then others. I shrug, tilting my wings to catch an updraft.

"I don't know." My voice is nothing like a child's tone or diction. But I have all the knowledge from a life and an afterlife pooling in my mind.

"Those men owned me you know, you were stealing from them."

_No-one owns anyone! You didn't look like you wanted to go with them, so I helped you..._

I don't answer her, floating upwards. This girl makes me fight against who I am, she...reminds me of my past_...__My__ past_...

*

I'm winging it, and based it on a random comment I chucked into the prolouge, hope it works out, I may skip a few years before the next chapter, get Cooro and Bree up to the age of the original +Anima band.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Two

I examine the fallen feather - one of my pinions that snagged on one of the branches from the little apple-tree in the garden. - it is clear and glasslike, but as soft and light as a normal feather, a normal crows feather at least. Many birds had much softer feathers.

_Like owls. _The voice is mine and not, like the memory that accompanies the thought of owls._ speckled brown wings, round golden eyes and a scared child's voice..._

_"Bree." That was her name? wasnt it?_ No. I say to myself, but deep inside, I know that it's a lie. Even after five years since seeing the girl, and months of complete silence from this facet of my thoughts, I can't forget _her._ And it weakens...me...my strength, against...

_Me?_

Yes. Against these wrong thoughts, which have plagued me since I first drew breath...

But I existed before then_._

_You didn't say alive?_

I am not alive, not like a human, this is just a temporary transition through flesh and breath.

_But I am alive._

I am not. Not truly living.

_Am I different to..._me_...then?_

No. You are just memories.

_Golden eyes look at me in suspicion and question, not my own, but the eyes of her, and her anima..._

You are nothing.

_I am different to you then, because I am memories, and you are...not._

I am real.

_But I hold our past..._

I press my fists to my temples, blocking out the voice that has caused so much damage, crushing the soft clear feather in my hand.

_But not as soft as an owl's..._

*

This sounds a bit like Tomas and the Shur'tugal from Raymond E. Fiest's Riftwar saga. whoops, does that make it plagiarism, or inspiration? Sorry this chapters short. I should probably combine it with the next one, also short, but I like this place to end.~Ratpigeon Oh yeah, in case you're confused, this is another five years after Chapter one, making Cooro and Bree nine.

*


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Three

I take the loaded basket back toward Nana, and Husky's house by the long route, avoiding the fruit stall, the sght, and scent of _apples _Nana was confused when I stopped eating them, doesn't understand why I avoid that tree, but she doesn't need to.

_You're avoiding me aren't you. you don't want to deal with my not-real memories._ I can feel the pleasure thet voice takes in defining me from _you. _I ignore it, and the voice doesn't push, instead taking a sudden control of my body that it hasn't had in years, and spinning us around, _I sense an anima, a familiar one..._

_I run towards the small, shabby house where I sense it coming from and push aside the curtain that covers the door with such haste that I nearly tear it._

_"Bree?"_

_Five sets of eyes look up from the table, an old man, three boys, all younger than eight or so, a girl of about six, and _her_ wide green eyes._

_"Cooro?"_

_"Yep! I was wondering what had happened to you."_

_"Ojii took me in, he runs a sort of...orphanage for escaped +Anima."_

_"That's so cool! You have to meet NAna and Husky! they used to be +Anima, they're my-" I stop. Parents? Friends? Companions? What have they become to me now._

Nothing. They do not matter. Life is brief.

I wrest my mind back into my own control, taking advantage of the momentary uncertainty.

"I'm sorry for interrupting. I have to go." Saying that, I strech out my wings, flying away as fast as I could, before those green eyes with the shadow of gold overwhelms my strength again. She reminds me of _memories._

_*_

Bree watched the winged figure rise against the sunset, wings flashing so bright that it was painful to look, but she didn't turn away.

"Ojii, was that an angel?" Mik was the youngest of the +anima orphans, a four year old dog +Anima.

"I don't know...Bree?"

"Maybe." Bree said, remembering how Cooro had saved her that time...but then, as his clear wings filled with the blood red light of the sinking sun, suddenly, she wasn't sure.

An angel? Or a devil in disguise...

*

I'm still writing on a wing. Feel free if you have any suggestions as to where I should actually develop a physical plot (I want the characters _doing_ stuff instead of just talking to themselves and lots of emotional blah...)


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Four

"Cooro! There you are!" Nana came running out of the house with a big smile, only slightly tinged with uncertainty. She doesn't know how to deal with my strangeness, and the fact that, when once we where friends, I am now her son.

__

It is kind of weird, her being my mother, but at least now I have parents...

I turn to Nana and smile, ignoring the thoughts. I wonder what could have called her out the this remote part of the garden, surrounded by thick green shrubs that smothered rather than sheltered, aand threatened rather than shaded.

"There's a girl at the gate for you. Says her name is Bree."

I shake my head, and ignore Nana, trying to drown out the other thoughts, the ones that strengthen when _she_ is mentioned.

__

Let's go talk to her! After all, we haven't made any other friends.

No. "I don't know who she is."

"Are you sure? She seemed pretty ceertain that she was looking for you."

I nod grimly and Nana leaves, disappointed. She wishes I had more friends, she worries. Ignoring her, I struggle to keep my wings folded against my back. I am in control.

*

Bree looked at the house, feeling a half-remembered tinge of sadness. Had she lived in a house like this once? She had vague memories of two smiling, people, warm arms, kind voices, and...Her thoughts shifted to her first clear memory, from nearly seven years ago.

__

There was a bitter-sweet smell in the house, thick and cloying. Sweat and sickness, and the sharp, bitter scent of blood. The girl shivered, rracked with the same hacking cough as her parents had been. Blood splattered the floor. She didn't like coughing, she wanted it to stop. Tears filled her eyes as she tugged at her mothers sleeve. Mommy and Daddy were lying on the big bed, the blankets twisted around them. They were sleeping, but they'd wake up for her, they always did.

"Mommy, I don't like it. Make it go." She whimpered, clinging to mommy's body, it was cold. It had been hot before, but now it was cold, and the contact made the little girl shiver. Mommy didn't wake up, just stared at the roof, the thin, cracked roof, Her hands clenched and hard like they'd never been before. "Mommy!" Her thin body shook again with more coughs, and tears trickled down her face, she didn't understand why Mommy wouldn't wake up. Her stomach growled, Mommy and Daddy had been asleep for four days already, and she'd eaten all the fruit and bread. Mommy said that she must never touch any of the other food by herself, understand?

She heard a voice in the other room exclaiming, bad words Daddy had said, but he still used them. Teh girl coughed again, still tugging on her mothers sleeve, but it was getting hard to stand up, she was tired, and so thirsty, likie a fire inside her was burning her up, Like it had burned Mommy and Daddy.

"****" There's someone still alive hre! A little girl!"

"THe doctors said that after three weeks, it's no longer contagious, its been nearly a month."

"SHe looks pretty sick to me."

"We can't just leave her." The girl was dimly aware of two Grownups in the room, standing over her. Their voices were deep and rough, like Daddy's. Those were her last thoughts as she drifted into darkness.

*

This is a flashback, bree didn't actually pass out, but if the chapter didn't finish here, it would be several times longer than any of the others, any way, I hope you liked it! Especially Kate and Grace Raven who have reviewed! Yay! And Anime gurl who reviewed **and** inspired Bree, Yay! Yay!


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Five

"I'm Sorry, Bree, Cooro's busy at the moment." Said the pretty woman, coming back through the gate, She had long shining gold brown hair, and hazel eyes. "Would you like to come in? I'm Nana. Hsuky will be back in an hour or so, I'm sure he'd like to meet one of Cooro's friends."

Nana, Husky. The two names rocked through Bree's mind like tidal waves. Husky, the maverick Prince, Myrrah's new name...His wife Nana, and the second in line to the throne of Sailand...Cooro... Bree looked up again at the large whitewalled cottage, with it's large, well-tended rose gardens and apple tree, full of just-ripening fruit. THere were also a variety of other flowers, ones that she knew came from hte mountains, poking their little bright heads out across the path. At the back of the garden were thick green shrubs, mysterious, making the rest of the garden seem brighter, and slightly unreal, like a storybook. Cupped within the enigmatic green shadows was Cooro, watching her. From here, she couldn't see his expression. She felt the power of her Anima unfurl automatically, as the world shifted into the grey spectrum that Tawny owls saw in. It was bright for her eyes, but her puils narrowed to pinpricks, and she could now clearly see Cooro's expression, only she didn't understand it.

His hands were buried in his snowy hair, his wings stiff and agitated, His golden eyes were changing from one expression to another so fast that she could barely keep up; Disdain, disklike, friendship, hostility, welcome, anger, fear, and then, hope.

"A +Anima..." Breathed the pretty woman, and Bree stiffened. What had she been thinking, allowing this woman to see her Anima? She backed away, ready to run, but Nana jsut kneeled in front of her, brushing the thick brown fringe away from her face, and exposing the black cresent around her right eye that it had covered.

"Hey Bree! How did you find me?" Asked Cooro, bouncing up. with a practised flick of his wings, he launched himself to the apple tree and picked one of the half-ripe fruit, chomping it in half with a single bite.

"Cooro! Don't eat that!" Snapped Nana, stranding up and letting Bree's fringe fall to cover her face again.

"But I wannaaaa." Cooro said, or at least, that's what Bree thought her'd said through all the apple.

"It's not ripe yet. You'll get a stomach-ache."

Cooro shrugged, still chewing. He grinned at his mother, and then gestured to Bree to join him. Bree glanced at Nana, who smiled good-naturedlyandwaved her on.

"You'd better fly up, some of the lower branches are damaged." Feeling slightly off balance, Bree nodded, letting her speckled wings slide out of her back as she flew up to join Cooro on silent wings. Cooro grinned at her, swollowing hi mouthful with some effort.

"Your feathers are so nice and soft, like a Pillow!" He said, giggling. Bree poked him with a wing-tip.

"Well you have weird clear wings, so you can't talk."  
"Huh?" Cooro asked, with an adorable look of innocent confusion, "Yes I can." The confusion was replaced by a shadow of doubt.

Bree shook her head, and started to explain, but stopped, when she saw the emotional turmoil in Cooro's eyes. This time Cooro's face shifted into seething anger and hatred, but there was a hint of fear underlying it.

"Go away. I never want to think of you again. This is _my _existence, and you will not interfere." He hissed, his wings standing out stiff behind him.. Bree flinched back in anticipation of a blow, a reflex bred from having been a slave for most of her life, and lliving in the dangerous slum areas in between masters.

"Cooro, what's-?"

"Get away from me!"

Bree didn't understand what she had done to make Cooro angry as she flew away, biting her lip to stop the tears until she was out of sight of those golden eyes - the same colour as the wide orbs watching the land below, seeing myriad shades of grey, and the tiniest movement. It wasn't till that night that she began to wonder about Cooro's phrasing.

*

I watched her disappear over the horizon, still tense, building up my defenses against th other one. I would not be subjugated again, and as long as Cooro had the capacity for doubt, learned after death, I would remain dominant. The barest whisper tendrilled through my mind._I'm sorry Bree..._

_*_

I actually did some research on tawny owls, so that I could get Bree's anima better. Owl's can see in the day, it's like cats, their pupils dilate in the dark, and shrink in the light. Also, they see in black and white. The only problem is that I think tawny owls are the_ only_ ones without golden eyes - all the pictures I saw had completely black eyes - except by the time I figured that out, I'd already said she had golden eyes when she used her Anima. AH well, its fiction, I ca do whatever I want. ~Ratpigeon


	7. Chapter 7

I'm getting a premonition, this chapter's gonna be bad. 3:1 odds, any takers? The currency is reviews. If you bet the chapter is gonna be bad, and it's not, then you have to submit 3 reviews to stories somewhere on Fanfiction. If you bet it's going to be good, and its not, then submit one review. If you're right, then tell me, and I'll submit long, considered reviews to your stories (Three if you think my chapter's good, one if you don't) THIS IS AIMED TO THOSE PEOPLE WHO READ, PUT STORIES ON FAVOURITES AND ALERTS, BUT NEVER REVIEW, AUTHORS NEED **FEEDBACK**. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! ACTUAL **REVIEWERS** ROCK! P.S. It doesn't even have to be reviews on this story, but that would be nice. I can't police you, so on your own honesty do it, for those who need reviews to find the will to write. However shallow that may be....On with the show!

Chapter Six

Bree sighed as she helped Tarran and Elijah with the vegetables. Mik and Bina were playing with Ojii, who was telling them a story as he worked on the fire.

"Be carefull with your hands, Tarran, I don't want to be eating finger stew." She chided gently, repositioning the seven-year-old boy's hands on the mutilated vegetable. Tarran was a spuirrel +Anima, with the black markings around his hands and feet, letting him climb trees quickly and easily. The boy became almost entirely squirrel, but no-one knew how he'd gotten his anima, since he never said a word, his big brown eyes always watching the everyone around him, seeeming to be on the verge of tears. Elijah on the other hand, was a rabbit, cheerful, fast, and seemingly indestructable - even though his anima only manifested a floppy pair of ears.

"Bree, what happened to the creepy see-through boy?" Asked Bina, hissing at Mik as the green scales radiated over her body, from the sinuous black line that curved down her back. MIk giggled and barked at her, his face elongated into the canine muzzle filled with sharp teeth that his wolf Anima gave him. None of these children ever spoke about how they got their anima, and only ever used them when they were well-hidden in the depths of Ojii's house. Poor Mik wasn't even able to show his face outside, since the telltale markings curled around his mouth in a menacing way, completely at odds with his sweet nature.

"Bree?" The owl +ANima looked up as she realised that she'd forgotten to answer Bina and she shrugged.

"He flew away, I don't know where he went."

"Your heartbeat just sped up." Said Bina, flicking her tongue in and out. Although she looked human aside from her layer of green scales, when Bina unfurled the power of her anima, she could sense anything a snake would, including the varying vibrations of a heartbeat.

"That's because we can start cooking our stew."

*

_What do you want with me?_ I jerk as I hear the voice again. This voice, it's becoming more and more distinct from me, it makes it hard to think. Husky is teaching me to read, something I never learnt before, and is proving difficult. I ignore _him._

_Why do we share this body? You hate me, and if this is your body, then why do I still live here?_ I don't even allow myself to think about the answer to that, to remember the music...

"And the fourth King of Sailand was known as The Conqueror, because he expanded Sailand territory from a small coastal province to a mighty empire reaching to the Kim-un-kur mountains." I finish the paragraph without hesitation, I've read it a dozen times already today.

_I remember music...you say you've lived twice, but weren't we the same before?_

No, never the same. You don't exist.

_I don't believe that. "What was I like before I died?" I ask, needing to know, trying to understand._

_"A cheerful, irresponsible idiot that everyone loved because of your goofy smile." Said Husky, without thinking. HE looked horrified as soon as the words came out of his mouth._

_I'm not like that any more though..._

No, YoU don't exist. You think you hold the memories of the past, but you have nothing. The past isn't real, even if it did belong to you. There is only the present, when I am the real one.

_Weren't you me, before?_

No. _Yes...I died...you...were..._

_*_

Cliffie! Yay! Not really, I don't know if I managed to conceal the true nature of this internal conflict at all. whoops. Anyway, this probably means this fic is nearing completion It's taken longer to write than any of my others. There are a few references to Angel in the last half of this one though. So, did you bet right? I'll leave it up to you - be honest - did you think it was as good (or not good, but then why are you still reading?) as the previous chapters? ~Ratpigeon


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Seven

"NO!" I stand up, wings stiff, trying to drown out his voice with my own. Husky looks at me in surprise, as the book I was meant to be reading thuds to the floor. I can feel my body shaking, but the sound of my pounding heart and harsh breath enough to drown out anything else.

My heart.

_My heart..._

I turn and run from the room, my wings shaking. I can feel and itching around my shoulders, and recoil in horror as I see anima markings beginning to darken against my white skin. As soon as I get out of the house, I take off, my flight clumsy with dedsperation as I pump my stiff wings to lift me into the sky.

It's not fair...

_I was dead...you told me to let them go...but I found them again...you lied...I hated you..._

You were dead! You should still be dead! It should be my turn! GO AWAY!

_what do you mean, your turn? It's my body..._

I shared this body with you, since you were born! How can you say it's your body?

_You told me I was making them cry._

You were. And you should have passed on. I bite my lip, hard, wanting to wrench my wings out of their sockets to get rid of the emotions coursing through me. The the taste of blood as my teeth pucture my lip only compounds the how much I have lost. My wings are darkening too now, as reality returns, I feel my own substance diminishing. I don't want to be just a shadow! Leave me alone!

_I don't want to be a shadow either, I'd prefer to be dead than this._

Don't say that! You have no idea! Most of the time I cant even communicate! I'm just a pair of wings! I'm hated by the ones I save!

"I just want to be real!" two voice screamed to the Sailand sky at the same time, from the same mouth...

I curl into a ball, letting my wings catch an updraft absentmidedly, as I feel tears running down my face as the colour runs back into my body. I can't fight him anymore. I can't _continue to exist....I'm not real._

I strech my wings and exult in being able to fly again, without having to struggle. I twitch slightly as i sense a +anima nearby, but dismiss it when I realise that _my _anima is...crying.

_I hate you... I hate this... I just want to die..._

But you're an Anima.

_I know! I'm an anima, I'm not real, I just save the lives of children in need, and disappear when they don't need me anymore, until someone else needs me! I'm just a pair of wings! I have no colour, no substance, I don't exist, and I can't die!_

What are you talking about? I was confused, my anima has never spoken like this before.

_I used your body, your soul, to tie me back to this world, so that I could have a physical body, so that I could exist. What we were, that semblance, that is as near to my true form as can exist in this world. _Bitter laughter echoed through my mind. _but that was stupid. I don't have a name, I don't have a body, or a heart or a soul. No anima does, but then, no other anima is concious...anymore._

You don't have a name? Even as I thought it, I realised that my anima did not have a name, it had always been just that, my anima. I realise that it's whole existance must have been like the ten years since I had died. A shadow.

_I don't need a name, or a body. I've been this way for hundreds of years, why change now?_ The voice is becoming more like I remember, cool and distant, and I realise suddenly, that there has always been a bitter note in it.

Hundreds of years?

_Yes. For more than eight hundred years, I have been the messenger of death, the black angel. A shadow of what people fear most. For the last seven hundred years, I've been alone._

What do you mean? I sense the anima brush against my senses again, but ignore it.

_There used to be another anima like me, a true spirit. Not just an essence. For a hundred years, we were together, even if we were separated by the world...even when we were bound into a child. I sense anima, because I could always sense her. They called her an angel, the White winged messenger, until They gave her a body, a name, they made her real, and I lost her._

An angel?

_Blanca. they called her Blanca. You found her, I could have been with her again, we would have been, but your need called me back, and her body was destroyed. I don't know what happened to her._

It's my fault that she died? And now you want to die too?

_Yes._

Suddenly my wings furl, and I begin to fall. I try to spread them again, but the marks on my shoulders have become faint, and the anima in my mind is curled up and distant, intent on ending its existance.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Eight.

Bree was cutting vegetables, when she eard a strange, quiet voice in the back of her mind.

_Fly Bree._

She jerked, and the knife slipped, cutting her finger.

_Pain, I remember that. _said the voice, and Bree realised that her feet were beyond her control, as they took her out of the house, before her wings unfurled and drew her quickly and powerfully up into the sky.

Who are you? She thought, confused as to what was happening.

_Difficult question. Call me Blanca. _As the voice spoke, Bree realised that her wings were changing.

_An owl. That was the last Anima Fly ever gave me. _Bree realised suddenly that her body was crawling with black markings, each one showing up briefly against her skin, then fading. _As if I needed them. _

Where did you come from?

_I've always been here, I'm the heart of your anima. I was covered over with many other essences, and after I...died...My mind was shattered, so I retreated under all of those other, newer anima, to heal. But I don't have time anymore, I have to find him before he does something foolish._

Find who?

_You'd call him Cooro._

*

The sense of an Anima hit me again, even as I plummeted to the ground, and this time I realised that It was Bree's Anima, but changed. As I acknowledged it, a sense of recognition thrummed through my body, so strong it even reached my anima.

_____! The thought that flashed through my mind from my anima was more a picture than a name, but it perfectly captured what I was sensing from Bree's anima, as well as an image of an angel,

_Blanca!_

My wings snapped out.

*

Bree dived towards the tumbling figure, knowing it couldn't be Cooro, his hair was dark, his skin a healthy tan, his wings were black as they snapped out of his back.

_That's the real Cooro, the one you met was like me. Please, can I take control of this body, just for a little while? _The voice sounded so quietly hopeful, that Bree agreed without a second thought.

_Blanca flung her head back, and sang, a melody that came from the very roots of her soul, as she shed reality like a cloak. Below her, he began to sing as well, following her to the place that they had come from, and could only return to together. He called to her, and as they reached their home, alternate existance, her body changed, shucking the appearance of a nine-year-old girl, and growing into that of a beautiful young woman, with pure white wings, mathcing her feathery hair, and ice-blue eyes. He changed to, Growing older, his hair darkening from deep brown to purest black, the same colour as his wings and the feathers running down his arms. They greeted each other, able to communicate for the first time in nearly seven hundred years; able to touch for the first time in eight-hundred and sixty-eight years. Thoughts flowed freely, combining, as each held the other close._

_I thought I had lost you, after they took you, and then, after you fell..._

_Having my own body made it difficult for me to sense you, or you me. We needed to be close. After I died, I needed time to heal, to forget human pain. _

_And by that time, I had a body._

_Yes, and I was still healing under layers of other anima. I only sensed you when you gave the body back, and remembered me._

_I wanted to die, without you..._

_I know._

_Concious thoughts subsided into a sea of true understanding._

_*_

Bree and Cooro thumped roughly to the ground from a height of about a dozen metres.

"What just happened?" Asked Bree, not expecting an answer.

"I think your Anima knows my anima, and they went off together." Said Cooro, dusting grass off his knees and inspecting his shoulders. "My anima's definitely gone."

"Mine too." Said Bree, feeling where the markings _had_ been along her back and around her eye.

"I've never not had an anima before..." Said Cooro grinning at Bree, "WHat about you?"

"I was about two and a half years old, and I was cornered by slavers, in a dark alley. The Anima helped me get away."

"So then, you don't really remember before having an Anima either? We can learn together! It's going to be weird without him..."

Bree nodded, wondering if this was the real Cooro, that had been hiding just under the surface of that cold, hard person that she had first known by that name.

"I have to tell Husky and Nana and Senri what happened! C'mon!" Cooro grabbed Bree's hand, and made as if to jump into the air, but ended up just tumbling down the soft grassy hill they had landed on, dragging a laughing Bree with him.

*

Soon after that, the number of Anima started to diminish, no new ones ever arriving to help children in need. Instead, if you could ever get one of the children who were spared from death by luck, they said that they had seen two angels, a man and a woman, who had wrapped them around with a song, and carried them to safety.

*

FINISHED!!!!!! Now I just need to make it make sense. Damn. Anyway, to Grace Raven, and Aime Gurl, and 'kate' , and Coori for reviewing! Thankyou also to everyone who read it, and enjoyed it. I think this is gonna be it for +Anima for a while though. See ya! ~Ratpoigeon


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